Firelands Normal Mode and Baradin Hold Boss Strategies

Today we have a list of the boss encounters in Terres de Feu along with their strategies--the videos are from our affiliated site, Tankspot, and the strategies mostly written by Wowhead with some of TS' strategies mixed in. Hopefully this helps out those of you who are looking to engage and start clearing the zone this reset; it's a fairly easy zone, but it can be hard to progress past a certain point for a lot of guilds.

Remember that Occu’thar is also finally live, as the PvP season has started. This means you have an easy loot pinata to check out, even if you don't regularly raid, so be sure to check out Bastion de Baradin this week.

Shannox is a boss summoned by killing trash packs roaming around instance. You will be able to monitor your progress in summoning him through his zone wide yells. Once summoned, he patrols around the zone much like Auriaya did in Ulduar. An elemental hunter, he has two pets: Croquepatte and Ragegueule. These pets play a large role in the encounter by causing Shannox to enrage upon their deaths so you will want to to bring Shannox to 30% HP before killing them; while technically you can push Shannox with the dogs alive, they enrage when they see their master go below that threshold and hit extremely hard.

When you engage Shannox, have ranged spread out and the melee clumped on the boss. Shannox uses which is a stacking debuff making the fight one tank on the boss and one tank to handle the dogs; you can do the boss tanking with one single tank (which we did on heroic) or two tanks. Both strategies are viable. If you can spare the DPS on normal mode 25-man, two tanks is way easier--however, it won't work in heroic modes. Since Tankspot's video uses three tanks, we'll discuss mainly this way. This method involves the offtank switch to maintanking after a certain amount of stacks--we did to nine, but everyone will be different--or you can reset the stacks when he does his toss move. Of course, switching isn't as simple as taunting. Throughout the whole fight you will want the tanks to mirror each other's threat, using to help them switch between tanking.

Your third tank's job is kiting Riplimb. His main ability Déchirure de membre also inflicts Jagged Tear. There are two strategies you can use: either the tanks can do a three way rotation to help reset debuffs or you can purposely kite the dog into Shannox's traps which will buy the tank time to get away and reset their debuff.

As is normal for a hunter, Shannox's other staple ability are traps. Piège d'immolation causes damage to those who run over it--including the bosses themselves, so it's good to try to make a dog trigger it. The other kind of trap is a lot more serious: Prison de cristal, which encases whoever triggers it. Players should never get trapped, as this causes the raid's DPS to be pulled off the boss to break the trap and also creates line of sight issues. Rogues can disarm these traps as well.

The other dog is Ragegueule. He can't be tanked and will run around, damaging random raid members. He will sometimes cast Rage faciale and focus a raid member for enormous damage. A specific raid healer should be assigned to watch this debuff and ensure no one dies from it, while DPS should attack the mob to get his focus to be broken.

Throughout the fight, Shannox will cast Jeter la lance. The spear lands near Riplimb and you don't want to stand in it. It also triggers a wave of fire which are easy to avoid; just stand in-between them. since this happens on a set timer, make sure your raid healers are aware and also make sure tanks get topped off immediately during this event.

As he reaches 30% HP, you will want to kill his dogs before you push him into his burn phase. For each dead hound, Shannox will inflict 30% more damage 30% faster, so with both of them dead you're looking at a 60% increase in both damage and attack speed. You will want to have a cooldown rotation on the tank at this point as the damage skyrockets. Blow any longer cooldowns here as well and you should have a kill easily.

Beth'tilac has two easily defined phases: the first is a kiting phase, the second is a burn phase. For phase one, you split into two groups, below her web and on top of it; for phase two, everyone groups up underneath her web and you must kill her before her increasing damage is too high while dealing with a debuff similar to Gluth's Blessure mortelle.

Phase one starts when she's first engaged--she retreats up to the safety of her web. You have to have players follow her up there or else the raid takes damage from Pluie venimeuse. Immediately split up your raid into top and bottom groups.

If you're assigned to go up top, you must use the web strings that drop from the sky to climb up onto her web. Only one person can climb up each string. Strings are created by Cinderweb Spinners that create her web; they hit for a low amount of damage on players and are negligible. Their purpose is just to create more web strings to return back up. You will want to have everyone who can bring them down do so, for example a Holy paladin should taunt and so on. That way you can make more web strings so those who are up top can go back up.

She casts Dévastation ardente three times during phase one. When she begins to cast it, those up top must jump back down to avoid taking damage and then must return up top when it's over. This is the perfect time to blow AoE healing cooldowns, since the entire raid will take a lot of damage.

On the bottom part, Cinderweb Drones spawn one at a time; these are larger, hard hitting spiders. Have your second tank pick them up. The Drones themselves need to be kited around the room because tons of little Spiderlings spawn every once in a while by Beth'tilac and they run around, damaging those in their path. If they get close enough to the Drones, the Drones eat them and gain a buff called well-fed as well as get healed.

After three casts of Devastation, she drops back down from the web and start phase two. When she comes down, she gains a stacking damage buff called Frénésie. She will cast Frenzy on herself periodically and with each stack of Frenzy she gains she'll do 5% more damage. It applies to all of her damage so this becomes the burn phase. She also casts Le baiser de la veuve on the tank so you will want to have the tank that was tanking the Drones taunt off so the main tank can reset their debuff.

Phase one of this fight starts out different from most fights as there is no need to tank him. He ambles around slowly and does not attack directly; instead, the real threat is where he intends to walk. Consequently, you'll need to steer him where you want him to path by attacking his left or right legs--applying more DPS to the leg in which direction you want him to turn. Balance the amount of damage done to his legs and then apply a group of DPS to swap to whatever leg is needed to cause a turn, communicating on ventrilo. E.g., if you want him to turn left, call it out and have your DPS switch off their assigned leg to the left leg for a quick turn.

Your immediate goal in steering him is to make sure that he stays on the island itself; if he gets to close to the edges, he'll begin to drink the surrounding lava which results in potentially deadly raid damage from Boire du magma.

Your secondary goal is to make sure that he is being led in the path of active volcanoes that crop up over time. Each time he walks over one, he will stomp on it, which removes stacks of Armure en obsidienne and gives him Armure de la fournaise instead. You will know it is an active volcano because he will shoot an orange beam towards a dormant one. He starts the fight with 80 stacks of Obsidian Armor and the goal is to remove them all so you can DPS him down to trigger phase two. Don't worry much about Molten Armor he gains in exchange, as he loses a stack whenever he casts a spell or summons an add.

As he is being steered around successfully in phase one, the ranged DPS, healers, and the tank handle the adds he summons. Lord Rhyolith spawns two types of adds: Fragments of Rhyolith and Sparks. He spawns these in an alternating pattern so you will never have two types of adds up at the same time, making this a single tank fight. Fragments begin with a debuff called Meltdown. When it expires, it does their remaining HP as AoE damage to the entire raid. As such, it's best to just AoE them down with ranged.

The other adds hit harder; a single Spark spawned each time with an Immolation aura, ticking for a base 10,000 fire damage to those within its range. The tank should pull it off to the corners of the island to tank it away from the ranged. It is important to have the ranged focus down the Spark as it contributes to too much raid damage and also takes up space where the melee couldn't steer the boss because of their ground AoE.

As mentioned earlier, throughout the fight active volcanoes spawn periodically. They put a stacking debuff on the raid that increases fire damage taken called Eruption. This debuff won't stop stacking until the volcanoes are dealt with and they make the damage the raid takes be quite severe as they buff all of it. You can easily wipe if it stacks to high. In addition, he casts Piétinement commotionnant time to time which hurts even more with the debuff. Volcanoes also shoot lines of magma across the zone which then flare up and become walls of lava. They hit hard and knock you up in the air, but are easy to avoid.

When Lord Rhyolith transitions into phase two after dipping to a low enough percentage, his model changes and the tank must pick him up. You cannot attack his legs anymore and he remains stationary. He also gains an Immolation aura similar to the one the Spark adds had. This ticks for a lot of and affects the whole raid. However, if he has Molten Armor stacks, he will hit for more. At this point, cooldowns should be used. This is the entire rest of the phase--dealing with the damage from his AoE and burning him down before it overwhelms your healers.

Alysrazor is a four phase encounter which repeats in a cycle, making it quite long and also making wipes frustrating. It's very easy to wipe in phase three due to the whirling lava tornadoes.

Tankspot did not have a video done for this encounter, so we will be posting a new strategy and video when they become available; while we've written most of our own strategies, it's very useless without a visual aid.

Alysrazor will being the fight by flying in the air and casting Tempête de feu. She will also surround her domain with walls of fire, so make sure your entire raid is inside the confines of the fire hawk's area. During the first phase of the fight, she will fly above the raid and you will have to deal with two types of adds - Initiée de la Serre flamboyante and Jeune vorace. (She will also leave harmful fire behind her path, so players should stand out of it.) The Initiates are mostly standard and easy to counter, but you'll have to make sure to interrupt their Conflagration de flammes while avoiding the balls of fire moving in a straight line. The second type of adds, the Hatchlings, will spawn as a pair early in this stage and will fixate on the player closest to their egg - make sure those two players are your tanks. After some time, the Hatchlings will grow hungry and their melee attacks will give them 20% chance to throw a Colère. To minimize the extra damage caused due to Tantrums, drag the Hatchlings to one of the Plump Lava Worms that spawn on the ground during this phase.

The other aspect of this phase requires a few players to fly with Alysrazor and damage her. Periodically she will use to all players at the center of her area, which does a lot of physical damage and Mue in the process. Molting will cause her to drop feathers on the ground. Pick those up to gain a stacking movement speed buff that allows you to cast while moving as well. Gain three stacks of the buff (i.e. collect three feathers), and you'll be able to fly and chase Alysrazor around. When doing so, make sure you fly through the circles of fire she leaves behind - they will refresh your flight buff, as well as increase your haste.

After some time in Phase One, Alysrazor will summon multiple Vortex embrasées - essentially fire tornadoes that move around and damage players. This is Phase Two. Avoid them at all cost, but try to run through the circles of fire she will also spawn - they are the same circles as the ones flying players encountered in Phase 1. After a few seconds in this phase, Alysrazor will crash on the ground and being her Burnout Phase, phase three. This is essentially a timed burn phase. The boss will crash with 0 of her Molten Power resource, and will end the phase when she reaches 50 of it - but she will take 50% extra damage for the duration of this phase. Essence des Verts will replenish your casters' mana pools, make sure to hit her even if you are a healer. Alysrazor will gain 3 Molten Power every 3 seconds due to her Etincelle, and two Sculptegriffe de la Serre flamboyantes will spawn and attempt to channel Embrasement into her, restoring even more Molten Power. The tanks should interrupt the adds while the dps burns the boss

When Alysrazor reaches 50 Molten Power, she will enter the last phase of her cycle. Her Embrasé buff will continue restoring 2 Molten Power every second. While in this phase, Alysrazor will constantly AoE the raid with Rafale flamboyante, so you should stack together if you haven't already done so during the last phase. The current tank should stay a little away from the group and soak the the boss will continue using on her primary target. When Alysrazor reaches 100 Molten Power, she will cast Pleine puissance, doing about 50k Fire damage, knocking everyone back, and entering Phase 1 again.

Baleroc is a one-phase encounter that gives each role (DPS, healer, and tank) a clearly defined niche to fill.

He has two alternating abilities he uses on the tank called and Lame infernale. He also casts Brasier de gloire on tanks, increasing their health but also the damage they take. You want to have two tanks to handle each specific ability; one tank should just gain Blaze of Glory debuffs and become a soaker for the Decimation Blade ability, taunting before he does the ability and then allowing the other tank to have the boss back.

Throughout the fight, Baleroc casts Eclats de tourment. There is one in range and one in melee. Once a shard is active, have one person "tank" it (a ranged DPS and a melee DPS) by staying with it and have the rest of the raid switch sides. The person taking damage from the shard will receive a stacking debuff called . Each stack of Torment does an increasing amount of shadow damage and you want to let it stack as high as possible, even using cooldowns to help with the damage. If someone does not tank a shard, your raid will wipe from the AoE it does without a target.

Every time a healer heals someone who has stacks of Torment, they get their own buff called Etincelle vitale. You get one stack per stack of Torment the target has, so that's why you want Torment to be so high. This buff allows the healers to heal the tanks as their HP climbs higher and higher thanks to Blaze of Glory. Basically, after gaining stacks, a healer should then heal the tank which gives them a Flamme vitale.

That's the entire fight; we found it easiest to get 50+ stacks on our paladins and we ran three paladins making it trivial. You will want to have three tank healers, so just have a healer gain stacks every shard for the first three shards, then switch fulltime to the tank where they won't lose their buff.

Staghelm has two forms: Forme de scorpion (raid collapse) and Forme de félin (raid spread). Every third shift, Staghelm will shift into human form and then adapt to your raid's positioning afterwards with either Scorpion or Cat.

The longer Staghelm remains in a form, the faster his energy bar fills thanks to Adrénaline. Whenever his energy bar is full, he'll use a devastating ability that depends on the form he's in. Eventually, his energy is filling fast enough that you have to switch forms.

Of course, the major caveat is that every time Staghelm switches forms, he also gains a stacking buff that makes him deal 8% more damage on those devastating abilities. This acts as a soft enrage, as eventually he just does too much damage to sustain.

You should start out the fight with the whole raid stacked together including the tank, with Staghelm facing everyone to trigger Scorpion Form. Whenever his energy bar fills up, he'll use an ability called . This ability is devastating, especially as he casts it quicker and quicker. We were able to make it through eleven of them the first time; ten the second; and so on as he gained his damage debuff each phase switch. You will want to use cooldowns for the last few times he casts Flame Scythe. When your raid can not take another, call it out, and have everyone run out from the center and spread out around the edges of the room. This will trigger a phase switch.

In cat form, he'll use an ability called Flammes bondissantes instead of Flame Scythe. He'll pick a random ranged raid member and leap to them, leaving a puddle in his wake. These fire puddles don't vanish while he's in cat form and you'll need ample space in the middle, so make sure that all your ranged raid members are far away from the center.Every time he leaps, he'll also summon an add called Esprit de la flamme. These need to be killed as they come out, so make sure to assign some DPS to them.

After both phases, Staghelm will shift into human form, briefly stun your raid, cast Graines incendiaires on everyone but the tank, and then shift into Scorpion Form. The Searing Seeds debuff will have a different duration on every raid member, from roughly 10 seconds to roughly a minute.

When Searing Seeds expires, the raid member will explode everyone else within 12 yards for damage. Whenever someone's debuff is about to tick off, they need to run out of the raid and away from other people.

The next time Staghelm changes forms after this, he'll briefly switch into human form again. This time, since you're transitioning into Cat Form, he won't cast Searing Seeds but instead use an ability called Orbes ardents. These will spawn orbs that focus on nearby raid members, you'll want to have people take a couple hits from the orb then switch with someone to combat its stacking debuff. More than five stacks will probably kill a person, so make sure you're watching out for it.

This is basically the entire fight; it gets harder and harder each transition.

In phase one, Ragnaros has two primary abilities. The first one is . He targets the ground with his hammer and lava begins to boil on the ground; a few seconds later, he slams the hammer down. This impact causes to radiate out from the blast. They're easy to avoid, but when we did get hit, they were pretty minimal damage. They put a debuff that can be dispelled that causes periodic damage. It's likely in heroic it would hit for too much or be unremovable as a way to make the mechanic more punishing.

The second ability he uses are Piège de magmas. He summons one on a random player in the raid. They function a lot like the Piège d'ombre mechanic from heroic Lich King, except they don't remove you from the platform. This makes them relatively harmless. Unlike the heroic Lich King ones, they also don't despawn during phase transitions. We ended up clearing them with our priests--they would purposely set them off, take the initial damage, then use Lévitation to avoid taking fall damage right before they came back down.

Other than these two abilities, it was fairly simple. is casted every once in a while and it's a lot like Horion statique from the Al'Akir encounter. Casters just shouldn't stand in melee to avoid it. Ragnaros also casts on a random player so players should be careful to not be in front of Magma Traps so they aren't punted back into one.

Phase two starts at 70%. Ragnaros spawns his Sons of Flame after throwing down Sulfuras. They speed towards the hammer and if they get close to it, they explode. They can't be slowed, but they can be stunned. We had ranged burst them down and melee get ones that were coming closer. They have a buff called which increases their speed if their HP is above 50%, so our melee just switched to ones that were high then switched off after and allowed ranged to finish them off.

After you clean up the Sons, Ragnaros comes back up and throws down a at every member of the raid. When they come down, we switched sides to the other end of the platform. After ten seconds, they spawn adds that can't be tanked. Luckily they don't hit for very much, either. We just gathered up and AoE'd them down then switched back to Ragnaros.

Other than that, it was a fairly simple phase. He also casts on the platform to make certain areas obscured, this doesn't become much of an issue until phase three, but should still be watched out for.

The final phase starts out at 40% with another intermission similar to the last except for the addition of two Lava Scions. These two mobs can be tanked and are fairly harmless except for the fact that they cast a debuff that heals Sons of Flame on random raid members. Just make sure that players that don't need to be anywhere near the Sons aren't and that players who have to be close don't stand directly in their linear path.

Phase three's whole mechanic relies on s. Ragnaros will summon on down from the sky and it will fixate on a random raid member. You can alter its path slightly by DPSing it--every time it's hit, it rolls away. However, if you're in the meteor's landing path or within a couple yards of it (regardless of whether it's following you or not), it will kill you. Thus only ranged DPS should try to alter its path. These meteors can't be killed and more of them continue to spawn, effectively making this last phase an intense burn one. The raid must run back and forth to avoid the meteors while finishing the Lava Scions that were left up from the intermission and also damaging Ragnaros.

As with most previous PvP bosses, Occu'thar is not an incredibly difficult fight, though may require a bit more execution than exercised in the average PUG. This fight will require two tanks, which must face the boss away from the raid due to the frontal cone effect of . When the first tank is hit with and gains the debuff (Ombres incendiaires), the other tank must taunt the boss off (as getting hit again by while debuffed will more than likely one-shot the tank). Simple tank rotation, tank gets debuff, other tank taunts. Unlike Argaloth's Attaque météorique, the damage is not spread between targets so there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be near your tanks (or for either of them to be near each other, for that matter).

DPS have a bit more to worry about, as Occu'thar will periodically target a random player and cast Feu focalisé. He will target the location and channel placement of a giant, fiery void zone on the ground that (you guess it) you shouldn't stand in. The animation for both the channel and the ground effect are extremely obvious, but players should try to spread out a bit to avoid unnecessary damage from it. Players shouldn't spread out too much, however, as his other ability is particularly mean.

Occasionally, Occu'thar will cast Yeux d'Occu'thar, attaching an Oeil d'Occu'thar to every player in the raid. The Eye will inflict ~6,000 Shadow damage every second for 10 seconds or until it is destroyed. When the Eyes go out, your raid will want to stack up very quickly and AoE these Eyes down as quickly as possible, because if they are left on a target for the full duration (10 seconds) they will detonate with Destruction d'Occu'thar, dealing ~25,000 damage to all players.

Commentaires

Commentaire de Chaosrock

I've been waiting for the strats! The dungeon journal tells you what the bosses do, but not what you should do.

Commentaire de Monday

on 2011-07-05T17:54:59-05:00

Very nice.

Commentaire de Koala

on 2011-07-05T18:39:57-05:00

@ Chaosrock: Even though people kept complaining that the dungeon journal would tell them what to do.

It's nice to get some different strat ideas to see what works for each group.

Commentaire de Interest

on 2011-07-05T20:04:40-05:00

I like how there's already a strat for Rag =D.

I've been waiting for the strats! The dungeon journal tells you what the bosses do, but not what you should do.

I see no problem with just listing abilities.

Commentaire de Alkony

on 2011-07-05T20:53:43-05:00

@ Chaosrock: Even though people kept complaining that the dungeon journal would tell them what to do.

It did tell you what to do for a while on the PTR. I think the slightly modified version that went live is a good compromise.

Commentaire de Djane

on 2011-07-05T22:21:51-05:00

Whilst it has been discussed that the Shannox tactic is one used by the top world guilds to get the kill. there are a variety of now known improvements to such that would greatly increase a raids ability to defeat the boss upon their first visit in firelands.

Firstly, whilst the three tank system works for 25mans, it is entirely unusable for 10mans. Secondly it is not the easiest way to manage stacks. Using two tanks both on 10man and 25man, positioning the raid about 35 yards away from Shannox, along with the riplimb tank. The riplimb tank positions themselves near a prison trap. When the spear is thrown, he traps the dog. The time it takes for the dog to get free is plenty enough for the tanks to reset the stacks. In basics. Tank the two things 40 yards apart, ish. Wait for spear, Trap dog. Rinse and repeat. This is slightly less forgiving if a player stands in a prison trap very early, mind you. Or if, through poor positioning you chain Rageface into Prison traps. This tactic is especially much easier than attempting a 3 tank rotation on a non tauntable boss.

Secondly, you can use a dps to break the facerage, whilst it's useful to have a healer on it, you can significantly reduce raid damage by making sure someone does a 30k crit on him the moment he starts. Having a backup dps for when the main Rageface nuker gets faceraged is also useful.

Thirdly, you must kill the dogs before or AS you transition into 30% on Shannox, not after as the guide states. Doing so after gives Rageface a chance to oneshot someone with facerage.

There is an alternative strategy where you kill Rageface from the start, reducing raid damage and increasing tank damage. How effective this is depends somewhat on your healers and your tank.

On Lord Ryolith, whilst it is true you cannot get 2 sparks up one after another, it is possible for him to summon 2 sets of fragments up in a row, and potentially more but i've not seen more than 2 in a row myself. Similarly in P2 he can actually be moved around, and doesn't remain stationary so much as is a usual tank and spank. Pedantic difference but it means you don't have to necessarily run the raid to him, but have him pulled to the tank.

Commentaire de Ashelia

on 2011-07-05T22:25:48-05:00

Firstly, whilst the three tank system works for 25mans, it is entirely unusable for 10mans. Secondly it is not the easiest way to manage stacks. Using two tanks both on 10man and 25man, positioning the raid about 35 yards away from Shannox, along with the riplimb tank. The riplimb tank positions themselves near a prison trap. When the spear is thrown, he traps the dog. The time it takes for the dog to get free is plenty enough for the tanks to reset the stacks.

Our guides are for 25-man. No one on staff raids 10-mans so no one feels comfortable writing 10-man guides.

Secondly, you can use a dps to break the facerage, whilst it's useful to have a healer on it, you can significantly reduce raid damage by making sure someone does a 30k crit on him the moment he starts.

If you do not have a healer that heals those with the debuff, there's a good chance the person targeted will die accidentally. Someone should always be watching out for the debuff and it should be on every healer's grid.

There is an alternative strategy where you kill Rageface from the start, reducing raid damage and increasing tank damage. How effective this is depends somewhat on your healers and your tank.

This is a bad strategy because it teaches players to misuse the mechanics of the fight vastly. You could argue 3 tanks also does, but 3 tanks lets players understand the fight andlearn the mechanics as they do so; this one teaches players to ignore almost all the mechanics by killing the dog. In heroic mode, it will not work as the dog will be revived. Heroic Shannox is indelibly the easiest of all heroic modes, so it's one that people will pug and kill sooner rather than later, so they should try to get used to the idea of tank damage and the dog's effects asap.

Thanks for your insight, this time in a much more mature light.

Commentaire de Djane

on 2011-07-05T22:47:48-05:00

Our guides are for 25-man. No one on staff raids 10-mans so no one feels comfortable writing 10-man guides.

It might be wise to state that somewhere in the guides themselves, or give some indicator. This said, now those that raid 10 can see how to do it on 10.

If you do not have a healer that heals those with the debuff, there's a good chance the person targeted will die accidentally. Someone should always be watching out for the debuff and it should be on every healer's grid.

I completely agree. I do not disagree with this point. Furthermore to aid healing, there should a be a dps or two watching for it too to break it as soon as.

This is a bad strategy because it teaches players to misuse the mechanics of the fight vastly. You could argue 3 tanks also does, but 3 tanks lets players understand the fight andlearn the mechanics as they do so; this one teaches players to ignore almost all the mechanics by killing the dog. In heroic mode, it will not work as the dog will be revived.

Unless i am very much mistaken, it is riplimb, not rageface who resurrects after 30 seconds. There is no information anywhere i could find, both in patchnotes, on the journal or on wowhead itself that says Rageface resurrects. Could you provide a reference for where rageface resurrects please?

Heroic Shannox is indelibly the easiest of all heroic modes, so it's one that people will pug and kill sooner rather than later, so they should try to get used to the idea of tank damage and the dog's effects asap.

Leaving the question of whether Rageface does or does not in fact resurrect, I'm not entirely sure writing a guide so that people 'get used to' heroic tactics is really the purpose of a guide of normal mode content, that is of course merely my opinion as a writer who believes in writing for the target audience.

Commentaire de Sephiroth

on 2011-07-05T23:10:46-05:00

Our guides are for 25-man. No one on staff raids 10-mans so no one feels comfortable writing 10-man guides.

No offense, but there needs to be someone to work on 10-man guides, because no matter what you say, every single encounter is different in some way in 10-man versus 25-man.

Commentaire de perculia

on 2011-07-06T00:03:01-05:00

Leaving the question of whether Rageface does or does not in fact resurrect, I'm not entirely sure writing a guide so that people 'get used to' heroic tactics is really the purpose of a guide of normal mode content, that is of course merely my opinion as a writer who believes in writing for the target audience.

Our target audience is people who come to the site for useful information. Blizz designed the encounter a certain way and presented it as such in the Dungeon Journal, so we'll talk about how to beat the encounter the way it's designed. Apparently my guild used 4 tanks on Shannox last week on normal (I was MIA, moving) and we were a bit perplexed relearning the fight this week on heroic the correct way (it died tonight, but wasted some extra time). I don't want to tell people a faulty way to do a fight so a week or a month later, they do heroics and are extremely frustrated. If you are referring to an audience that is not doing hardmodes asap yet is conscientious enough to visit a site like Wowhead, I feel preparing them correctly is important so bad habits don't get ingrained. Also, after comparing notes with some friends working on hardmodes, it's pretty clear that Shannox isn't working as intended with the preferred strat being to ignore most abilities--so I think that fight in particular will be retuned soon and core mechanics emphasized more on both difficulties.

I believe the previous comment referred to dog not dogs (plural), and it's true that Riplimb the dog will resurrect on hardmode.

These guides were put out as we were raiding tonight--it's nice that they were put up so quickly. As Blizz continues to tweak the encounters and we progress into hardmodes, these strats will change and be edited, like our 4.1 strats and 4.2 gear guides are.

Commentaire de jumbodog

on 2011-07-06T01:22:16-05:00

I was just in a PUG and we spent an hour wiping on the new BH boss. The problem wasn't the tanks switching or even the eyes. The problem was that immediately after the eyes are killed the void zone spawns and wipes the party. We just couldn't get past that hurdle. If the eyes don't die with in two global CDs the the party has already taken about 15K damage and you add that to two 32K ticks from the void zone and bam that's more HP than the average DPS has. Stopping AOE and then moving 12 yards is just really difficult it seems. If you any where near the center of the void zone you just going to die.

Commentaire de Nagousta

on 2011-07-06T03:42:15-05:00

Our guides are for 25-man. No one on staff raids 10-mans so no one feels comfortable writing 10-man guides.

Well Ashelia, I only raid 10-man, and am happy to write guides for that bracket. I'll just need that email about blogging and whatnot to get started.

Edit: Yo dawg, I herd you like guides so I put a guide in yo guides thread so you can strat while u strat.

------------------------------------------

Shannox - 10-man Normalby NagoustaWarning: This strategy does not apply to real life encounters with giant lava lizards and their faithful dogs.Ability List

Set-up

2 tanks3 healers5 DPS (slight ranged preference)

Shannox spawns after a good deal of trash has been killed. Clear a large area for fighting Shannox, who patrols around the whole zone after spawning, following the circular path that crosses both bridges. The area south-west of the south-east bridge is ideal - keep killing trash in a widening area there until the boss spawns.

In Brief

Everyone: - Be reasonably spread out to aid trap spotting, but not so much that the melee need to run far on Rageface. - Avoid traps (crystal and immolation), especially when the dogs are dead. - Avoid standing where the spear will land, and dodge the resulting fire patches. - Tanks and DPS: Don't let Riplimb die if the tanks have too many stacks (6+).

DPS: - Order: Kill Rageface (untanked), take Shannox to 30-40%, kill Riplimb, kill Shannox. - On Rageface, try to save a big hitter (above 30k crit) for when he's using Facerage. - Crystal Trapped raiders should be broken out immediately by DPSing the trap. - Melee: Be mindful of extra traps around Shannox, and his cleave, while DPSing him!

Healers: - Lots of heals on those being hit by Facerage. - Shannox' tank will take around 50% more damage for each dead dog, but a dead Rageface means less raid damage, and a dead Riplimb means no off-tank damage. - The raid will take increasingly large AOE hits when Riplimb dies.

Tanks: - Shannox: Face him away (he cleaves). Move the boss 10 yards or so if traps get too heavy. If your debuff stacks get too high (12+), run away from the spear when it is thrown to increase the time till your next debuff. - Riplimb: Tank him near (5-10 yards) to a crystal trap, and then manoeuvre the dog onto the trap when the spear is being thrown. If your stacks get too high (12+), run away from the boss after trapping the dog to increase the time till your next debuff. - Be sure to never have Shannox and Riplimb more than 60 yards apart!

In-depth Strategy

Dealing with traps:Deadly Boss Mods gives a personal warning and a /say speech bubble for dropped traps. All traps should be moved out of. Rogues can disarm one trap every 70 seconds, but don't disarm crystal traps - only immolation ones. Immolation traps are survivable (75k damage, then 60k over 6 seconds), and raiders becoming trapped by crystal traps can be broken out by DPSing the crystal. Being hit by an immolation trap after Riplimb is dead is certain death.

The raid, including the tanks, should have a very large arena to move in, so if traps are becoming a problem, then the whole raid can move into clearer, trap-free territory. It is a good idea to do this twice during the fight, and good times are just before Rageface dies and just before Riplimb dies. Shannox' tank should be stepping the boss every time the traps build up while the melee are on him too - it is a good idea for a melee to call for a move whenever appropriate. Remember: don't move the raid too far; Riplimb's tank needs to be in range (60 yards from the boss) to a crystal trap for stack resetting.

Dealing with enrages:If the boss goes below 30% health, remaining dogs will enrage, increasing their damage to wipe-level (500%+). When a dog dies, the boss enrages, who merely does around 40-50% more damage (which stacks per dog). Kill Rageface first (50% more damage), then take the boss down to 40% or so in preparation for killing him later. Then kill Riplimb (100% more damage), and blow cooldowns to finish off the boss.

Additionally, when Riplimb is killed, Shannox will begin pounding the ground every 10 seconds or so. Each pound causes a raid-wide AOE, hitting increasingly hard each time (around 50k, 70k, 98k, 137k, 192k) due to a stacking debuff, which makes for a soft enrage. Each hit also spawns rings of fire. These have a very short range, and standing between them is easy.

Dealing with Rageface:All DPS should get straight on killing Rageface as soon as the fight starts. We want to kill Rageface ASAP to remove his damage from the fight, which is very erratic (longest cooldowns should be saved for the final burn on the boss, though). When he uses Facerage, crit chance against him is increased by 50%, and he must be hit by more than 30k damage in a single strike to break him out. The stunned raider will be killed in around 4-6 seconds otherwise, so try to do this quickly. If possible, save a high-hitting ability for this attack. The target of the ability should be spam healed to keep him up until he is broken out.

Dealing with Riplimb, Jagged Tear (the debuff), and Hurl Spear:The tanks are hit by an ability that causes a stacking DoT debuff. It is pretty lenient, only becoming a healing problem for healers after 10 or so applications. When the boss throws his spear, it always lands close to Riplimb, who then collects it and brings it back to Shannox. While Shannox is without his spear, he does not cleave or stack debuffs, and while Riplimb is retrieving the spear he cannot stack debuffs either. The time it takes for this retrieval to happen can be increased through various means, hopefully dropping the debuff.

The tactic is for Riplimb's tank to have him near to a crystal trap, so the tank should constantly be on the look-out for the furthest-away crystal trap. Move to it, and when the boss throws his spear (easily visible by the large bright spot which appears near to the dog), manoeuvre the dog onto the trap, thereby trapping the dog for several seconds before he can retrieve the spear. This should lengthen the time by enough to drop both tank's stacks. It will not work every time (it depends on the distance between the trap and the boss, and when the boss and dog are using their ability before and after the spear toss), but it should happen often enough for healers to keep up.

If it is not, and tanks stacks are getting too high, then there are some backup tricks. Riplimb's stack can easily be dropped by his tank merely running away from the boss (not more than 60 yards) after trapping him, thereby increasing the time it takes for Riplimb to continue hitting the tank after returning the spear. Shannox' tank can do the same, by running away (with Shannox in tow) from the frozen Riplimb (again, no more than 60 yards), and further while the dog is running back with the spear, thereby increasing the time before Shannox can cleave again. Riplimb is succeptible to some slowing effects (but not many at all) while running to Shannox, so DPS can switch to the dog to further increase the retrieval time.

Stacks should absolutely be dropped from both tanks as close to Riplimb dying as possible, so DPS should be prepared to hold off and wait for a reset before finishing him.

In ConclusionStaying out of traps, breaking people out of Facerage, resetting stacks, and burning the boss down are the four mainstays of this fight. If you can perfect them, you will kill this boss without issues. It is a very long fight, but reasonably lenient, with the only potentially complicated job going to Riplimb's tank. If you have the gear, then this boss will be eminently doable.

----------------------------------------------------------

Happy for this guide to be used on Wowhead's boss page, and I can make further guides for the other bosses if need be. It took around an hour, but it will be doable more efficiently with practice and a bit of experience with how Wowhead's linking works.

Commentaire de OverZealous

on 2011-07-06T08:37:05-05:00

Very nice indeed guide, and very in-depth. Nice work on your 10-man version aswell, Naqousta; I'm sure (or well, I'm hoping) it'll be much appreciated. It should be, anyway, if there's noone else writing 10-man version guides.Give him a cookie, I say.

Commentaire de mysticalos

on 2011-07-06T16:49:16-05:00

Eh you don't say anything about the rip tank moving rip away from the spear. I think that's most important part of the strat, especially when he has wary from time to time which is unavoidable if he runs through a fire trap during hurl spear when you can't really control him. Best way to handle rip is to run as fara way from spear as possible when it's hurled. this adds a lot of time to BOTH tanks because he has to run to spear, then run to shan. shan should be no where near spear and neitehr should rip, it's go to run rip directy to shan cause he has to run to spear first. If you can do this AND traps, the amount of time the tanks aren't getting debuffs is substancial. Combine this with a slow effect on him 100% of time like an arcane mage, and it'll be rare tank's don't reset stacks during hurl spear this way, even if he's not trapped. It's especially important when you can't afford 3 tank strat (ie 10 man) to do it this way.

Commentaire de pezz

on 2011-07-06T17:26:52-05:00

Leaving the question of whether Rageface does or does not in fact resurrect, I'm not entirely sure writing a guide so that people 'get used to' heroic tactics is really the purpose of a guide of normal mode content, that is of course merely my opinion as a writer who believes in writing for the target audience.

Our target audience is people who come to the site for useful information. Blizz designed the encounter a certain way and presented it as such in the Dungeon Journal, so we'll talk about how to beat the encounter the way it's designed. Apparently my guild used 4 tanks on Shannox last week on normal (I was MIA, moving) and we were a bit perplexed relearning the fight this week on heroic the correct way (it died tonight, but wasted some extra time). I don't want to tell people a faulty way to do a fight so a week or a month later, they do heroics and are extremely frustrated. If you are referring to an audience that is not doing hardmodes asap yet is conscientious enough to visit a site like Wowhead, I feel preparing them correctly is important so bad habits don't get ingrained. Also, after comparing notes with some friends working on hardmodes, it's pretty clear that Shannox isn't working as intended with the preferred strat being to ignore most abilities--so I think that fight in particular will be retuned soon and core mechanics emphasized more on both difficulties.

I believe the previous comment referred to dog not dogs (plural), and it's true that Riplimb the dog will resurrect on hardmode.

These guides were put out as we were raiding tonight--it's nice that they were put up so quickly. As Blizz continues to tweak the encounters and we progress into hardmodes, these strats will change and be edited, like our 4.1 strats and 4.2 gear guides are.

To support the staff on this one: You'll always be provided with a strategy that works, often because Blizzard has intended the encounter to work the way Wowhead ends up suggesting (that sounded causal. It wasn't supposed to be. Wowhead doesn't determine raid encounters). If you know/want to try a slightly more gimmicky strategy for any given fight, take a look at the comments section (provided on Wowhead), and look for high rated posts (a system provided by Wowhead) that might mention other strategies. Wowhead staff have always known they can't supply everything. That's why there are forums and comments. It's unfair to them to look for several different ways of doing everything in the blog posts.

Commentaire de Nagousta

on 2011-07-06T18:16:59-05:00

Eh you don't say anything about the rip tank moving rip away from the spear. I think that's most important part of the strat, especially when he has wary from time to time which is unavoidable if he runs through a fire trap during hurl spear when you can't really control him. ...

I disagree with this. We started with this tactic too, with Riplimb being tanked 55 yards away from the boss, and then priesty-yoinking the tank closer to the boss after the spear toss. It didn't seem to be a dead-cert reset - the extra time Riplimb needs to run and collect the spear is around 5 seconds, where the crystal trap freezes him for longer than that. I certainly can't see the tank managing to successfully rush the dog to a crystal trap much nearer the boss with very much accuracy (since he has only a few seconds between the ability starting and the spear landing); but if you are managing both running and trapping, then I stand corrected.

Also, with the freeze strat, the tank just stands him next to the trap and waits for the spear, freezing the dog when the time is right. There is no opportunity for Riplimb to cross an immolation trap beforehand, so the wary debuff is not an issue.

So yes, it's a viable tactic, but I don't think it's the best one. After keeping an eye on stacks on our second kill of Shannox tonight, stacks were reset very often with just freezing.

Commentaire de CrimsonTemplar

on 2011-07-07T14:08:59-05:00

Not sure how you swap Shannox and Riplimb since they're taunt immune.

My guild's first kill used the method where the tanks kept Shannox and Riplimb 35 yards apart. That gave them time to let the debuff stacks drop-off and we did our best to trap him in crystal prison traps whenever we could. We burned Rageface down by making use of the Immolation traps to increase the damage he takes and help stop him from face-raging anyone (usually me) for too long. Once Rageface was dead we would get Shannox to ~33% and Riplimb to ~5%. At that point we would kill Riplimb and burn down Shannox. Biggest hurdle in phase 2 is avoiding the traps he keeps throwing out while burning the boss down.

Commentaire de Nagousta

on 2011-07-07T15:37:25-05:00

Neither are tauntable, indeed, but the second tank can build threat in tandem with the first, staying as close to the 130% threat mark as possible. When the first tank has too many stacks, he stops building threat and allows the second tank to take aggro on both of them.

The advantage of this is absolutely no running around for either tank, and cleave damage on the boss while Riplimb is being DPSed. The disadvantage is that it is very difficult for the tanks - trying to swap threat on two targets at once without a taunt is not very efficient, and your tanks will be generating a bit less threat overall from having to stop and wait for the other to overtake at each swap. Fortunately, they will have some time at the beginning of the fight to get ahead while your DPS is on Rageface.